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House of Glass

By Susan Fletcher

Paperback

£13.99

From the acclaimed author of Eve Green (a Richard & Judy pick) and Let Me Tell You About A Man I Knew, a compelling, wonderful historical gothic novel about lies, love and ghosts set against the backdrop of a Britain on the cusp of the First World War.

June 1914 and a young woman - Clara Waterfield - is summoned to a large stone house in Gloucestershire. Her task: to fill a greenhouse with exotic plants from Kew Gardens, to create a private paradise for the owner of Shadowbrook. Yet, on arrival, Clara hears rumours: something is wrong with this quiet, wisteria-covered house. Its gardens are filled with foxgloves, hydrangea and roses; it has lily-ponds, a croquet lawn - and the marvellous new glasshouse awaits her. But the house itself feels unloved. Its rooms are shuttered, or empty. The owner is mostly absent; the housekeeper and maids seem afraid. And soon, Clara understands their fear: for something - or someone - is walking through the house at night. In the height of summer, she finds herself drawn deeper into Shadowbrook's dark interior - and into the secrets that violently haunt this house. Nothing - not even the men who claim they wish to help her - is quite what it seems.

Reminiscent of Daphne du Maurier, this is a wonderful, atmospheric Gothic page-turner.

Biographical Notes

Susan Fletcher was born in 1979 in Birmingham. She is the author of the bestselling Eve Green (winner of the Whitbread First Novel Award), Oystercatchers and Witch Light - and most recently, the much-lauded Let Me Tell You About A Man I Knew.

Other details

ISBN:
9780349007656

Publication date:
01 Nov 2018

Page count:
368

Imprint:
Virago

Brilliant characterisation, beautiful and mesmerising story: like entering a dream. I was spellbound and couldn't do anything else but keep reading — Jill Dawson

A gorgeous, darkly gothic treat — Amanda Craig

House of Glass may start as a ghost story but turns into something much more profound: a lyrical examination of how women carve lives out of a male-dominated society, even with a war looming that will change everyone. I was surprised and moved — Tracy Chevalier

Fletcher's prose is dreamily sensual, full of the light and heat of an English summer, an eerie contrast to the shadows of the oncoming First World War . . . House Of Glass is a beautifully written, gloriously Gothic story of gardens, ghosts and old, uneasy grudges — Eithne Farry, Sunday Express

With echoes of Daphne du Maurier, House of Glass is a mesmerising ghost story set in a dilapidated country house where things go bump in the night — Good Housekeeping

A very satisfying read with a clever twist. I loved it — Four Shires

A wonderful novel: passionate, intelligent, humane, it held me from the first page to the last. Van Gogh's fleeting genius - achingly out of reach, the pull so strong - is wonderfully evoked; and the house of cards that was the Weimar Republic provides the perfectly rendered backdrop for a story about our willingness to deceive in the pursuit of beauty — Rachel Seiffert

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